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December 10th, 2009
10:38 am - Just testing the latest opera mini 5 beta 2 for blackberry
Looks like they fixed the overzealous backpace problem, that's good!
Post from mobile portal m.livejournal.com
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December 5th, 2009
12:33 pm - You are standing in your shower
You are standing in your shower. The floor is littered with bloated sunflower seeds. There is a pressure cooker here.
Post from mobile portal m.livejournal.com
Current Mood: bewildered
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October 11th, 2009
12:34 pm - Not enough sense to come in out of the rain
i have been getting really stir crazy so when Saturday rolled around i was ready to get out. i grabbed my camera and i grabbed my Storm, and we jumped in the car without a real plan. i had half made up my mind to go to Joneborough when i topped a hill and saw that Buffalo mountain was shrouded in clouds. i headed that way instead. it was pretty drippy when we got out of the car, as all the foliage was accumulating moisture from the fog. The higher we got, the deeper the fog, and the wetter everything became. i think this is the reason it took a while t o realize it had started raining, and this when we were over a mile from the car. we had good fun though, walking in the rain, getting soaked to the bone, while talking and pretending we were in alternate universes (such as the Punyverse, where everything is tiny, or the Loonyverse where everything is backwards.) . i think i also got some great photos, we'll see when i get them downloaded. the leaves were changing and the colors combined with the fog made for some beautiful scenes. btw, i apologize for all the inevitable errors in this post, im using the beta of opera mini and it is having issues with auto capitalization and backspacing. i cant backspace, it sticks and i wipe out entire sentences.
Post from mobile portal m.livejournal.com
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11:36 am - shameless request
If anyone can send me a google wave invite, i'd be most appreciative. meesterx at gmail dot com.
Post from mobile portal m.livejournal.com
Current Mood: sunday morning chillin
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October 5th, 2009
08:15 pm - The trouble with using "big-ass" as an adjective
I've heard several examples of people using "big-ass" as an adjective lately, and I would like to warn you of the dangers inherent in this linguistic structure. Namely, that any use of this modifier is subject to misinterpretation, especially when used vocally, or when the hypen is admitted. For instance...
Example 1: "I killed a big ass spider in the bathroom today."
You probably meant that you killed a large spider. But it is also possible you just admitted you have ass spiders, which is just nasty. If you have ass spiders, don't admit it. Seek help.
Example 2: "I made a big ass mistake at work today."
Really? You made a big "ASS MISTAKE"? At WORK? What the hell were you thinking? Dude, you are soooo fired.
Example 3: "I need a big ass fucking vacation."
Really Mr. Buttram? You need a big, ass fucking vacation? Whatever floats your boat I guess. I hope I don't see you until you return. And yes, it was really said by someone named Buttram. I will not let him live it down.
In conclusion, I hope you are able to learn from their mistakes, and spare yourself the social repercussions.
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September 28th, 2009
10:23 am - My little town makes the Drudge Report homepage...
Our little town made the Drudge Report homepage... a vendor has been kicked out of the Johnson City Mall for selling anti-Obama merchandise.
http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/News/article.php?ID=71327
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September 26th, 2009
09:29 pm - Faux-painting
Just fooling around with some techniques tonight, and came up with this. The original is roughly 4200x2800. I started with one of my photos, used a couple of filters to get me started, then spent a couple hours using Paint Shop's "art media" at a variety of settings to blend, tweak, etc. I think the final result is pretty convincing, and if printed on canvas would look quite real (until you got close enough to see that the there wasn't really depth to the paint strokes).
(click for bigger size)
Here's a closeup: (click for bigger size)
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September 5th, 2009
11:28 am - Yard sale at my house
Buy our stuff, cheap. :)
I've got my paintball guns and equipment up for sale, and a broadsword, if your life lacks either of these.
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August 31st, 2009
04:50 pm - Might as well jump
Series taken at Laurel Creek Falls in NC
( +10ish )
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04:44 pm - Finally got a decent picture of it...
Looks delicious, doesn't it? Yum.
It may be yum, but frankly I'm never going to eat it. I bought it as decor. Never seen three dried shrimp in a bag sold as a snack before. It was in a gas station, between the circus peanuts and the pixie sticks. Very surreal.
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August 17th, 2009
11:38 am - the timber rattler I saw yesterday
1. I submit for your consideration one timber rattler, approximate age 14 years old, who was cooperative enough to let me take these photos of it.
( +17 )
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August 16th, 2009
03:23 pm - Another one to check off the list
Saw a mature rattlesnake while out hiking today... Luckily I saw it while it was a ways up the path, instead of stepping on it!
It made me glad to have a telephoto lens. Having to sneak up close to it with a macro would have really sucked. :)
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August 14th, 2009
02:49 pm - Lake fog at sunset
1. Looking across the lake, the fog is about 4' - 10' deep on the water.
( +17 )
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01:34 pm - Some shots from First Friday
First Friday is when once a month Johnson City shuts down Main Street and there are open houses at the businesses, performers, and so on. I was wandering about with my camera for this one.
1. In the park between Main and Market
( +19 )
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August 13th, 2009
04:49 pm - One of Lorelei
Took this at First Friday... I had her stand near a shop window that had a neon sign.
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August 11th, 2009
09:06 am - I've been made obsolete...
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/08/sony-camera-robot-youll-always-find-him-on-the-table-at-parties/
Sony introduces a bot that knows when it's a good photo, and takes it for you. Robocamera!
What shall I do now? Stamp collecting? Hmm.
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August 7th, 2009
09:34 am - Confirmation that we went into Iraq because our leaders belived in invisible sky people.
Bush to Jacques Chirac, prior to war in Iraq: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”
This is confirmed by Chirac. So we went to war with Iraq because of Biblical prophesy? It was a f*cking holy war? Excuse the pun, but holy shit! Four thousand American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives because of this. A trillion dollars in debt, gone to line the pockets of the war industries.
Fuck. WHY PEOPLE? WHY?
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=haught_29_5
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August 6th, 2009
03:02 pm - Friends and Alien Lifeforms in East TN
I took a trip with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nonspecific and her father up to Beauty Spot near Erwin TN. We also spent quite a while at a nearby meadow, where the alien lifeform was discovered. More of that in a minute. It was a GORGEOUS day for shooting, with good light, enough clouds to keep the sky interesting, and perfect temperatures (for this photographer anyway). The theme of the day was orange. I didn't plan it that way, but that's how it turned out.
Onward.
( Approximately many photos follow. )
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July 30th, 2009
02:42 pm - A sunny afternoon at the park
Just some pics of the family and misc friends. It was a sunny, breezy day. There were kites, smiles, and a baby.
1. Storm flying one of the parafoils
( +7 )
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11:40 am - Dinner in the Dark
Several weeks ago we were scheduled to have dinner over at nonspecific 's house, and a big storm swept through the area. When we arrived, there was no power. But there was a grill, and there was tinfoil, and we had a great time despite the lack of electric current.
1. The dinner spread, by candlelight.
( + many )
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10:12 am - Downtown
I've been sitting on these for over a month. I shot these six weeks ago, just walking around downtown one day. Uploaded them around the end of the month, and then forgot about them.
1. A steeple stands in for broken wrought iron.
( +3 )
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July 14th, 2009
08:25 am - Storm goes back to school today
It just isn't right. Mid july? Harsh.
Many msic goings on have gone on and went. I found an awesome deal on a refurb netbook for Mel, $150 for an asus eee 900a, so I grabbed it. It was pristine, and lavender to boot. Turns out the xandros linux that comes on it is really beastly stuff to work with though, so (after some tribulations) I put ubuntu netbook remix on there. So far so good, its sweet. Now I want one, but they're sold out.
Took the family to the shore two weekends ago, isle of palms in sc. It was lovely and relaxing. I still have the remainder of a sunburn from that.
We've had dinner with Kara and Z, and Samantha and Rich. Both eves were lovely.
I've not done nary a click of photography the last few weeks. I may have some stuff uploaded that I haven't published yet though, I'll check.
Off to work.
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July 2nd, 2009
12:35 am - I can get add on lenses for my cameraphone? sweet.
I bought this for my phone:
It's a little lens that adheres, sticky-note style (non-permanently) to the phone. You sort of paste it over the camera, and when you're done you pull it off and put the cap back on (to protect the sticky). This one is a closeup lens.
The surprising thing is that it does really well.
My watch
A penny.
I don't know why this image is smaller. 336x248 is not a setting the phone even offers.
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June 30th, 2009
05:18 pm - One injured Storm
Storm was climbing the tree in the side yard today and she fell. She got a concussion, broke three teeth, was delirious, and got pretty bruised up. They did a cat scan though and no internal bleeding. We're leaving the hospital now.
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June 26th, 2009
10:13 pm - shut up and stick to what you're good at
It's as good a plan as any.
1. Calling down the rain
( +16 )
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11:15 am - Ok, Mister President, let me see if I have this straight.
You, with the backing of Phillip Morris, have banned the sale of clove cigarettes, and other flavored cigs.
Except, you are exempting Menthol cigarettes. Menthol isn't a flavor? No, it's a flavor. Here's why not menthol:
- Phillip Morris manufactures menthols, so it would hurt their bottom line if those were banned
- Menthols are popular with the black community, and that wouldn't work well for Obama. Can you imagine? lol
The idea behind banning flavored cigs is that these are preferred by youth. But we know that menthols are popular in the black community. So is that to say black youth are not worth protecting? That is what this bill implies.
All we have here is an anti-competitive measure, and an expansion of federal power. It's targeting imported products, exempting popular domestic products, and declaring that federal power now supersedes state power on this issue.
Argh. And they wonder why we don't vote. It's because no matter who you pick, they find a way to screw things up.
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June 24th, 2009
12:24 pm - Flexing some HDRI
(click pic for larger version)
I'm quite pleased with the overall look of this one, especially considering the three exposures where shot handheld. You can see some foliage movement at the left side, but that is the nature of these things.
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June 21st, 2009
09:56 am - Happy fathers day
Storm made me breakfast in bed. Awww!
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June 20th, 2009
04:41 pm - Happy birthday Ianlyzu!
Kori, seen here doing the hand jive, out on the birthday barge on Watauga Lake.
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June 19th, 2009
11:09 am - Weird day in Internet land, half-ass connectivity
Thought the net was out this morn, but noticed things here and there will still working. Our VOIP lines still work. Facebook and Livejournal IM still work (though yahoo, gmail and others dont). I can get to yahoo but not google, can't get to microsoft. I can get to LJ. Windows update can tell me there are updates, but it won't download them. Stupid flaky internet.
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June 18th, 2009
07:11 pm - At the home of nonspecific
And lo, there is no power. Thank you strange storm season. Tonight we shall grill.
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June 16th, 2009
08:30 pm - Hold on to your hat, east tn
The weather is getting a bit spinny.
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June 15th, 2009
04:54 pm - Roller Derby Time
I have waaaaay too many pics. Random assortment follows. Little City Roller Girls (our team) vs. the Brusin' Burgs.
1. Warmups
( + 20-something more )
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11:45 am - Birdeh
Camera Model: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Focal Length: 500.0mm
Exposure Time: 0.0020 s (1/500)
Aperture: f/8.0
ISO equiv: 640
Exposure Bias: -0.33
White Balance: Auto
Metering Mode: Spot
Exposure: aperture priority (semi-auto)
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June 12th, 2009
June 10th, 2009
10:55 am - Amazon.com oddness
Why, if you go to Amazon and enter Amazon.com in the search field (early morning error, don't ask), does it offer this as the first result?
1. Get it by Thursday, Jun 11 if you order in the next 8 hours and choose one-day shipping. Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping.
This is on a browser that is not logged in and cookies cleared, so I don't think it's me. What do you get?
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June 8th, 2009
09:08 am - IT'S SPAM TIME
OFIM good people. As you may know, spam is like a word association game for me, I judge the quality of spam by the first thing that pops into my head when I read it.
"You can be ugly and stupid as long as your shaft is big."
Why am I picturing Vern Troyer walking next to Samuel L Jackson?
"Boost your health with Acai Berry."
acai thx bai
"You will find online shopping for drugs very convenient."
You will also find you have new package delivery guys in blue uniforms.
"After you enlarge your penis you can feel all the enjoyments of this life."
But, you must feel only with your penis, that is the catch. "Hey honey, feel how soft this sweater is... OMFG WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?"
"Feeling unneeded in bed? We can change it to different feeling."
Like unneeded at work too.
"Satisfy Your Loveer"
I am particularly intrigued by this combination of the words "lover" and "veer". Except that the word "veer" is typically heard in news reports, as in "...causing him to veer into oncoming traffic". Perhaps you will satisfy him/her so much, they will veer into traffic. But seriously, you shouldn't be doing that while driving. Get a room.
"Being a real man is a hard job, but it's easier with a blue pill."
Real men choose the red pill, and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
"Bust a move"
Says she wanna dance cuz she likes the groove, so come on fatso just bust a move. You want it, baby you got it...
"Vacancy of the accounting assistant"
You got that right, she's a total airhead.
"You hate when your friend down there ignores a hot chick."
Freakin' Igor, he has a one track mind. Always with the brains, that one! Igor, get out of the graveyards and bring me a hottie!
"Loan mortgage car"
Guys, come on, you aren't even trying anymore. Don't give up. At least make an attempt to get past the filters.
"Is this a photoshop?"
No, this looks spammed. I can tell from some of the pixels, and from seeing quite a few spams in my time.
"Amazing weight loss in the shortest time possible"
Try the Eviscerator 2000! It slices, it dices...
"Continues to Execute Aggressive Development of Immune-O-Therapy"
What exactly is "Immune-O-Therapy"? As in, Immune Orgasm Therapy? I may be willing to try this. And you say you are developing it aggressively? Even better. :)
"Age is no longer a barrier for me in bed"
Yep. I'm now dating 90-year-olds.
And, because I appreciate innovation even if it's spam, I share this with you... some enterprising spammer made the word viagra made by coloring in blocks of an html table. I got it in an email entitled "Allarm!":
Its fun! Resize your browser to watch the word change. It's like they emailed me a toy. I'm still not buying any though.
TTFN,
Vaughn
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June 7th, 2009
09:53 pm - Fun photo shoot... Roller derby!
Our local roller derby team, the Little City Roller Girls, asked if I would shoot their next home match. I used to work with one of their jammers, Chick Norris, and was recently seen buying a polished lava pendant from their other jammer, so I got the double whammy and agreed to do it. Not that it actually took any convincing, roller derby has kitsch, sex appeal, violence, and retro coolness. What is there NOT to like? Plus you are shooting fast action in a large interior space with varying distances in poor lighting, so its a real challenge.
I'll post pics from the event when they are ready, but for now I just want to share that I had a blast.
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08:36 am - Success is...
Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.
-Thomas Alva Edison
I used this quote this morning (Lorelei was wishing she had mad guitar skillz), when Melanie chimed in from the kitchen. "Don't forget respiration".
"Well, that's true, or you'd have a bunch of talented but suffocated dead people. How about this... Success is 10 percent inspiration, 10 percent respiration, and 80 percent perspiration."
But then Storm yells from the bathroom... "What about transportation?"
She's right. You can have mad skillz till last Tuesday, but no-show = no spotlight.
"Ok, good point, you need to get there. So success is 10 percent inspiration, 10 percent respiration, 10 percent transportation, and 70 percent perspiration."
Now I'm wondering what else success requires. Emancipation? Innovation? Bloviation?
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June 6th, 2009
12:46 pm - Crazy cat
Emma went tearing through the living room like hell itself was after her, and used my foot as a banked corner.
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June 5th, 2009
11:36 am - Moved my site again, and google gadgets broke
I moved my site again, to an even faster server than last time. Nice side benefit of working for an internet company.
A weird thing happened though, my google gadgets quit working when viewed on my iGoogle homepage. What was baffling me is that before making the site live I checked that both my cron job was working correctly to generate the updates, and that the generated files were happy and accessible. Example of happy and accessible file: http://www.vaughnsphotoart.com/googlegadgets/random-landscape-photo.html
The error was an odd one too, a 403 access forbidden. Yet I could view the files just fine, outside of the igoogle page, which meant some combination of Google's handling of the link and my new server made it barf. Google links directly to the file, but they append all kinds of parameters to the url:
http://www.vaughnsphotoart.com/googlegadgets/random-landscape-photo.html?lang=en&country=us&.lang=en&.country=us&synd=ig&mid=62&ifpctok=-7539280821549177493&exp_split_js=1&exp_rpc_js=1&exp_track_js=1&exp_ids=300403&parent=http://www.google.com&libs=hvXvLcAdreI/lib/liberror_tracker.js,V_hCLz15ZAw/lib/librpc.js,MgYjoHVg2rQ/lib/libcore.js&view=home
I separated out params one by one, and tracked it down to this one as the problem: parent=http://www.google.com
Spent about an hour trying to write an .htaccess RewriteRule that would remedy it, maybe encode the slashes and color or something, and then realized it was never even getting to my rule. Why? I went through server logs and eventually figured out that the new server is running the EasyApache ModSecurity module, and ModSecurity is taking offense to the "=http://www.google.com", thinking it is an injection attack.
So, I had to learn how to write rules for ModSecurity, and eventually wrote one to allow the google gadget requests to go through.
Ah, what fun.
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June 3rd, 2009
01:17 pm - Ug, me tie rock to neck, me crafty
Here's a better pic of the necklace I made myself last weekend:
I guess the picture says it all. Rock + parachute cord + knots = a wearable thing. Slipknots allow for adjustability. It's simple, it's masculine, I like it.
Only problem is that all those holes hold water when you shower, and when you lean forward later it gets your shirt wet. :)
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01:00 pm - How come when software says "optimize image"...
it always means "reduce the quality of the image by compressing it, thereby making it look worse"? It's like going to a restaurant and being handed a check... except that you aren't being given money, you have to pay. Stupid backwards language.
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May 31st, 2009
01:39 pm - Vultures following you...
... Is not a good omen.
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May 30th, 2009
04:04 pm - Minor creative exercise
Pictured below is the cool-as-shit necklace I made for myself out of paracord and a smoothed disc of volcanic rock. Length is adjustable via double sliding knots in the back, and I love the way it looks. I'll post better pics later.
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10:34 am - myfirsttat.jpg
My First Tat?
Tats-R-Us?
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